Technical Tracks

Track 1: Infrastructure Networking Technologies
Track Co-Chairs:
Andreas J. Kassler, Deggendorf Institute of Technology, Germany, andreas.kassler@th-deg.de
Cedric Westphal, UCSC & Futurewei, USA, cedric.westphal@futurewei.com

Description:
Networks will have to support bigger and more diverse traffic volumes at low latency in the coming decades. They need to provide more predictable and reliable services as they are an important infrastructure of our society. This track asks which advances are needed to enable our network infrastructure to deal with this development and how to make an infrastructure’s capability accessible to applications and services. Future network infrastructure must be more flexible, on many different levels, layers and elements of the network architecture. An important property is the proper integration of multiple network domains - from the Internet at large over mobile/cellular networks to data-center networks. Flexibility and infrastructure advancements are needed at different levels of the network architecture, from switching hardware over softwarizing networks up to resource management aspects like slicing. The track also looks at how some aspects of computing can be brought into the network in a flexible and programmatic way, and to have the network be more responsive to specific workloads. It also encompasses research and development on different aspects, like management, governance or policing of networks, up to legal, policy-making and ethical aspects.

Track Topics:
• Internet at large
• Mobile and cellular networks, including satellite networks, cell-free or core-less mobile networks
• Data-center networks
• SD-WANs
• Programmable software and hardware targets (e.g., SmartNICs) as well as corresponding compilers, architectures, and toolchains
• Programmable offloading for transport and networking protocols
• In-network support for distributed computing or in-network aggregation for distributed Machine Learning, Security, Software-Defined Mobile Networks, Edge and Ubiquitous computing, Augmented Reality, Internet-of-Things and Smart Cities
• Softwarization concepts like software-defined networks or network function virtualization and how they can be flexibly accelerated using customized or programmable networking hardware
• Flexible resource management, e.g., agile spectrum sharing or network slicing or resource management for unconventional application patterns like machine learning at the edge
• Reconfigurable network infrastructure, e.g., optical networks or radio self-backhauling
• Computation offloading using infrastructure/data processing units (IPU/DPU), up to and including in-network computing
• Network support for HPC and high-speed data center fabric
• Automated/intelligent network configuration
• Efficient network misconfiguration diagnosis methods
• Planning, provisioning, deployment, operation, and management
• Policy-making, regulation and governance of networks; sustainable network infrastructures
• Optical Network infrastructure
• Business models like open radio access networks (ORAN) and ethical aspects

TPC List:
• Ana Aguiar, University of Porto, Portugal
• Bengt Ahlgren, SICS, Sweden
• Torsten Braun, University of Bern, Switzerland
• Marcus Brunner, Huawei Technologies, Switzerland
• Yueping Cai, Chongqing University, China
• Marilia Curado, University of Coimbra, Portugal
• Doganalp Ergenc, University of Hamburg, Germany
• Vaji Farhadi, Bucknell University, USA
• Dewang Gedia, University of Colorado Boulder, USA
• Molka Gharbaoui, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy
• Fabrizio Granelli, University of Trento, Italy
• Karl-Johan Grinnemo, Karlstad University, Sweden
• Rentao Gu, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
• Zehua Guo, Beijing Institute of Technology, China
• Wolfgang John, Ericsson Research, Sweden
• Holger Karl, Hasso Plattner Institute, Germany
• Michail-Alexandros Kourtis, NCSR Demokritos, Greece
• Laaziz Lahlou, Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ETS), Canada
• Sándor Laki, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary
• Lefteris Mamatas, University of Macedonia, Greece
• Vincenzo Mancuso, Imdea Networks, Spain
• Catalin Meirosu, Ericsson, Sweden
• Tobias Meuser, TU Darmstadt - KOM, Germany
• Max Ott, Rutgers University, USA
• Younghee Park, San Jose State University, USA
• Helge Parzyjegla, University Rostock, Germany
• Fabio Pianese, Nokia Bell Labs, France
• Madhurima Ray, Penn State Beaver, USA
• Gourav Saha, Mahindra University, India
• Sandra Scott-Hayward, Queen's University Belfast, UK
• Wouter Tavernier, Ghent University - imec, Belgium
• Reza Tourani, Saint Louis University, USA
• Kurt Tutschku, Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH), Sweden
• Xuyu Wang, Florida International University, USA
• Jingya Zhou, Soochow University, China